Bloggings On Immigration Law And Policy

DREAM ACT COULD COME BACK TO HAUNT GOP

I've been blogging about this for years, but the GOP still can't see that its tilt to being the anti-immigrant party is incredibly dangerous for its long-term prospects. The LA Times reports on this today. Some in the party suffer from the delusion that Latino voters don't care about immigration or, incredibly, actually agree with their positions. Polls show they overwhelmingly are concerned about the subject and they have been moving to the Democratic Party in droves over the last five years.

When the recession is over (and its looking like 2011 will be a much improved year for the US economy), the anti-immigrant hangover will begin to settle in as Republicans running in 2012 start to realize that they have a major handicap having to right off virtually the entire Latino community. Considering they are now America's largest minority group at 47 million and considering that a high percentage are US citizens, the GOP strategy is suicidal.

Today's three page story in the New York Times should also concern GOP politicians. The story crunches new US Census data and talks about how immigrants are now favoring suburban and rural communities over cities for the first time ever. These are Republican strongholds. Probably not for long.

Perhaps the GOP has moved so far in to the anti-immigrant camp that it sees reversing course with Latinos as impossible. That might explain why their opposition to the DREAM Act is so fierce and they are now pushing to repeal the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship provision. They've looked at the electoral math and know they are going to go the way of the Whig Party unless they can somehow change the game.

About The Author

Greg Siskind is a partner in Siskind Susser's Memphis, Tennessee, office. After graduating magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University, he received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Chicago. Mr. Siskind is a member of AILA, a board member of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and a member of the ABA, where he serves on the LPM Publishing Board as Marketing Vice Chairman. He is the author of several books, including the J Visa Guidebook and The Lawyer's Guide to Marketing on the Internet. Mr. Siskind practices all areas of immigration law, specializing in immigration matters of the health care and technology industries. He can be reached by email at gsiskind@visalaw.com.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of ILW.COM.